Some 10 months ago I bought a new Panasonic smart tv and I gather this topic is well discussed. However since trying to get on demand tv I find that there is constant bufferering. This occurs usually after about 15-20 mins and interrupts my catchup viewing considerably. I find this only happens when I watch iPlayer, 4od, ITV player etc and not when I watch Netflix. Is the data streaming different on Netflix? My router is situated on the first floor of my small house and tv on the ground floor and is working perfectly and my download speeds are good. I purchased BT powerline broadband extenders (having tried wifi extenders and told that these were not suitable) so I am short of ideas as to what to do further. Friends who have Samsung tv's tell me they have no problems so is it a Panasonic issue? All very disappointing.

First, check that the TV's firmware is up to date.

Buffering is usually caused by insufficient data flow either over the net and/or from the router to the player device. Data flow problems in your home are relatively easy to diagnose. For testing purposes, but a long Ethernet cable. If you connect that then disable the wireless or disconnect the powerline adapters and the problems disappear then you know that they were the cause.

Data flow over the net is somewhat trickier to troubleshoot. It could be server issues for the source sites, or maybe a problem with an intermediary server (Samsung owners know all too well about this right now), or a local ISP problem, phone line issues, or even how your router is handling traffic.

Your broadband speed is simply too low, what speed do you get?.

Netflix is far better with slow speeds because it drops quality down until it works - which is obviously better than not working at all. I've seen Netflix working with only 0.5mbps with no buffering, and fairly 'acceptable' picture quality.

Not that I'm the least bit knowledgable about things like this, but, I was having the same problem with my on demand services, I phoned Virgin and they asked me if I switch off at the mains on a night, which I did, they told me that's when they do their updates and to keep it switched on, Iv had no problems since. I have a samsung tele if that helps.

I've had my smart Panasonic for about a year, i use it to stream content almost every day,no problems with buffering,is there other kit in the house that could be using bandwidth?

First thing to do.

Plug a computer into the router via a cable, turn off any WiFi on the computer so that you are certain it is using the cable only.

Run a speed test and note down the result.

Now go to where the TV is and unplug the network lead from the back of the telly and plug it into the computer. Do another speed test and compare to the first result.

This should tell you if there is a problem with your raw broadband speed or the powerline adapters (which incidentally are NOT extending your broadband but your home network ).

It would also be useful if you could plug the TV directly into the router via an ethernet cable and see if that has any effect. That might mean carting the TV to where the router lives if you don't have a sufficiently long lead to run a temporary connection for testing, so can understand if you might not want to do this.

The BBC used to have a diagnostic tool on the iPlayer website that would indicate if your internet speed is good enough. But that seems to have been taken down.

https://iplayerhelp.external.bbc.co....onnection_test

Also it is completely irrelevant what other people with other TVs experience if they are not also connected to your broadband service via your router. It is entirely possible that if you connected one of these Samsung TVs in place of your Panasonic the Samsung would have exactly the same issues as your TV. And equally if you lugged your telly to their house and plugged in in place of their telly your Panasonic would work perfectly.

....and easy to check too....

All the OP needs to do us check the resolution output to see whether it is, 288, 320, 480, 720, 1080p, this would then give an indication of what speed they are getting. If it's a resolution of 288, 320, 480 this would indicated a slow speed, if it shows 720 or 1080p then there is no reason why catchup shouldn't run without interuption and the problem lies elsewhere.

Sorry but how do I do that?

My download speed is approx 20mbps

Where did you measure that? Was that with a direct cable connection to the router or plugged in to the powerline adpater the TV is using?

As I posted above you should do a speed test both directly connected to the router and via the powerline adapters to check there is nothing wrong with how the TV is connected up.

And make sure WiFi is turned OFF on the test computer to guarantee you are only seeing the results over the cable connection.

Sorry I forgot to switch off the wifi. Revised speed test is

DL 31.57 mbps
UL 8.4 mbps
Ping 49.75 ms

This was taken via ethernet cable from router to my computer and not through the power line connectors.

On my Panasonic remote I can get streaming info by pressing the i button whilst the programme is playing.

OK so now do the same test via the powerline adapters to make sure that they are working properly.

If they give close to the 31.57Mb/s (by the way mb is millibit, 0.001 of a bit which would be very very very very slow! ) then that should be more than enough for streaming even HD video.

I've been telling people this for light years

(Sheldon/Penny ref)